Sam Dylan Finch

Everyone, whether they have a mental illness or not, knows what it’s like to be in total despair and have no idea what to do about it. You’re curled up in bed, you don’t want to move, and you desperately wish you knew how to make things better.

One thing I’ve noticed about mental illness is that it’s a mess of contradictions. It tells us one thing, urges us to do another. We have one desire, but then act totally to the contrary because… reasons.

I need to know that you love me with all of my brokenness. I need to know that you can see me in my most self-destructive, fucked up place, and you won’t flinch. I need to know that you understand the darkness and that the darkness is a part of you, too.

I used to think that I would only be happy if I came as close to being “neurotypical” as possible. I thought that I needed to be cured to live a whole, fulfilling life (which is one of the downsides of the medicalization of our struggles, but that’s a story for another day).

Imagine a scenario in which these highly-evolved dinosaurs, instead of destroying an entire village and kidnapping women (SNORE), were actually gentle giants that brought sexual liberation to a village of patriarchal, shitty human beings.

This is fancy talk for “holy shit, I cannot make peace with my body today or ever, because this body is telling the world I’m a woman when I’m actually not.”

I’ve heard a lot about this magical thing called “closure.” It sounds really great. My understanding of it is that, as time goes on, this person from the past becomes so distant that you no longer feel an emotional attachment. New romances fill the void left in your heart, and eventually this person who was once so significant suddenly becomes a blip on the screen.

For years, I didn’t know I was hearing voices. When it started to happen, it felt like someone else’s thoughts were being inserted into my mind, shouting at me, undermining my reality — impossible to control.

A thousand Bach violin concertos swirling around my crib, imprinting those melodies on my brain, had not changed the fact that I was meant to be a cellist. And a thousand “she’s,” beginning from the moment that I was born, had not changed the fact that I had grown up to be a “he.”

What could trigger an episode? My life was perfect now. I took my meds (most of the time, anyway). I was a mental health advocate for a living, for crying out loud; I knew what I was doing. Besides, it had been so long since I’d experienced a real episode — I was practically cured. I couldn’t even remember what it felt like to hit rock bottom, and really, was it ever THAT bad?